Baryshnikov has spearheaded many of his own artistic projects and has been associated in particular with promoting modern dance, premiering dozens of new works, including many of his own.[citation needed] His success as a dramatic actor on stage, cinema and television has helped him become probably the most widely recognized contemporary ballet dancer.

Recognizing Baryshnikov's talent, in particular the strength of his stage presence and purity of his classical technique, several Soviet choreographers, including Oleg Vinogradov, Konstantin Sergeyev, Igor Tchernichov, and Leonid Jakobson, choreographed ballets for him. Baryshnikov made signature roles of Jakobson's 1969 virtuosic Vestris along with an intensely emotional Albrecht in Giselle.[4] While still in the Soviet Union, he was called by New York Times critic Clive Barnes "the most perfect dancer I have ever seen."

Principal dancer with the New York City Ballet

On July 8, 1978, he made his debut with George Balanchine's and Lincoln Kirstein's company at Saratoga Springs, appearing as Franz in Coppélia. On October 12, 1979, he danced the role of the Poet in Balanchine's ballet, "La Sonnambula" with the City Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

This was Baryshnikov's last performance with New York City Ballet due to a tendinitis and other injuries. His tenure there coincided with a period of ill health that followed an earlier heart attack and culminated in successful heart surgery in June 1979. Baryshnikov left the company because he was going to leave anyway to become artistic director of American Ballet Theater in September 1980, and he needed time off because of his injuries.[9]

On stage as a dancer

Baryshnikov also toured with ballet and modern dance companies around the world for fifteen months. Several roles were created for him, including roles in Opus 19: The Dreamer (1979), by Jerome Robbins, Rhapsody (1980), by Frederick Ashton, and Other Dances with Natalia Makarova by Jerome Robbins.

Artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre

Baryshnikov returned to ABT in September 1980 as an artistic director, a position he held until 1989. He also performed as a dancer with ABT.[9]

On April 27, 2017, Baryshnikov was granted citizenship by the Republic of Latvia for extraordinary merits.[12] The application to the Latvian parliament along with a letter from Baryshnikov in which he expressed his wish to become a citizen of what today constitutes his native country was submitted on December 21, 2016. He stated that the decision was based on memories of his first 16 years living in Latvia, which provided the basis for the rest of his life. "It was there that my exposure to the arts led me to discover my future destiny as a performer. Riga still serves as a place where I find artistic inspiration," Baryshnikov wrote in the letter to the Latvian parliament.[13]

Reputation as a dancer

Baryshnikov's talent was obvious from his youth, but being 5 ft 5in (165 cm) tall,[14] maybe 5 ft 6in (168 cm),[15] thus, shorter than most dancers, he could not tower over a ballerina en pointe and was therefore relegated to secondary parts. More frustrating to him, the Soviet dance world hewed closely to 19th-century traditions and deliberately shunned the creative choreographers of the West, whose work Baryshnikov glimpsed in occasional tours and films. Baryshnikov's main goal in leaving the Soviet Union was to work with these innovators.

"It doesn't matter if every ballet is a success or not," he told New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff in 1976, "The new experience gives me a lot." He cited his fascination with the ways Ailey mixed classical and modern technique and his initial discomfort when Tharp insisted he incorporate eccentric personal gestures in the dance.

"Mr. B," as Balanchine was known, rarely welcomed guest artists and had refused to work with both Nureyev and Makarova. Baryshnikov's decision to devote his full attentions to the New York company stunned the dance world. Balanchine never created a new work for Baryshnikov, though he did coach the young dancer in his distinctive style, and Baryshnikov triumphed in such signature roles as Apollo, The Prodigal Son, and Rubies.

In 1980, he became Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre and his role changed from performer to director. However, in 1989, he left when the company went behind his back and fired his second-in-command Charles France.

Nevertheless, Baryshnikov's fascination with the new has stood him in good stead. As he observed, "It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity and making an earnest attempt."[18]

The White Oak Project was formed to create original work for older dancers. In a run ending just short of his 60th birthday in 2007, he appeared in a production of four short plays by Samuel Beckett staged by avant-garde director JoAnne Akalaitis.

He has received three Honorary Degrees: on May 11, 2006, from New York University; on September 28, 2007, from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University; and on May 23, 2008, from Montclair State University.

For the duration of the 2006 Summer, Baryshnikov went on tour with Hell's Kitchen Dance, which was sponsored by the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Featuring works by Baryshnikov Arts Center residents Azsure Barton and Benjamin Millepied, the company toured the United States and Brazil.

In late August 2007, Baryshnikov performed Mats Ek's Place (original Swedish title, Ställe) with Ana Laguna at Dansens Hus in Stockholm.

Baryshnikov has performed in Israel three times: in 1996, when he appeared with the White Oak Dance Project at the Roman amphitheater in Caesarea; in 2010, when he performed with Ana Laguna; and in 2011, when he starred in nine performances of "In Paris" at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv. In an interview to Haaretz newspaper in 2011, he expressed his opposition to artistic boycotts of Israel and described the enthusiasm of Israeli contemporary dance as astounding.[21]

Film and television

Baryshnikov made his American television dancing debut in 1976, on the PBS program In Performance Live from Wolf Trap. The program is currently distributed on DVD by Kultur Video.

During the Christmas season of 1977, CBS brought his highly acclaimed American Ballet Theatre production of Tchaikovsky's classic ballet The Nutcracker to television, and it has remained to this day the most popular and most often shown television production of the work, at least in the US. In addition to Baryshnikov in the title role, Gelsey Kirkland, Alexander Minz, and many members of the American Ballet Theatre also starred. The production was videotaped in Canada. After being shown a few times by CBS, it moved to PBS, where it was shown annually every Christmas season for many years, and still is by some PBS stations. It was first released on DVD by MGM/UA.[22] The remastered DVD of the performance, issued by Kultur Video in 2004,[23] is a bestseller during the Christmas season. The DVD has now been released in the UK by Digital Classics.[24]

Although Tchaikovsky's ballet has been presented on TV many times in many different versions, the Baryshnikov version is one of only two to be nominated for an Emmy Award. The other one was Mark Morris' "The Hard Nut", Morris's intentionally exaggerated and satirical version of the ballet.

On November 2, 2006, Baryshnikov and chef Alice Waters were featured on an episode of the Sundance Channel's original series Iconoclasts. The two have a long friendship. They discussed their lifestyles, sources of inspiration, and social projects that make them unique. During the program, Alice Waters visited Baryshnikov's Arts Center in New York City. The Hell's Kitchen Dance tour brought him to Berkeley to visit Alice Waters' restaurant Chez Panisse. On July 17, 2007, the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer featured a profile of Baryshnikov and his Arts Center. Baryshnikov appears, uncredited, in the 2014 film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit as Interior Minister Sorokin.[25]

In a continuation of his interest in modern dance, Baryshnikov appeared in 2015 in a three-and-a-half minute commercial for the clothing designer Rag & Bone along with the street dance artist Lil Buck with both performing dance roles.[26]

On stage as an actor

Baryshnikov is a performer in avant-garde theater. His breakthrough performance in Broadway was back in 1989 when he played Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis, an adaption of Franz Kafka's novel by the same name. His debut earned him a Tony nomination.[27]

In 2004, he appeared in Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor And The Patient at New York City's Lincoln Center, and in 2007 in Beckett Shorts at New York Theatre Workshop.[28]

On April 11–21, 2012, Baryshnikov starred in a new play directed by Dmitry Krymov, titled In Paris. The play was presented in the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, at the Broad Stage. His co-star was Anna Sinyakina.

He then appeared in the stage adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Man in a Case.[29] As he said:

I grew up reading Chekhov's stories and plays. I have wanted to explore a Chekhov story for the stage for some time and I'm delighted to bring Man in a Case to Berkeley Rep. Both tales are about solitary men and their self-imposed restrictions. We know very little about the character in the first story, 'Man in a Case,' except that he teaches classical Greek and he's kind of eccentric and conservative. But then something happens to him that is unexpected. The second story, 'About Love,' provides an arresting contrast to the first work. At their core both stories are about love. And I think it's a romantic show in many respects that is perfect for Berkeley Rep's audience.

On April 21, 2015, The New York Times reported that Baryshnikov was scheduled to perform a reading of the Nobel Laureate poet Joseph Brodsky in Riga in 2015.[31] The performance was called "Brodsky/Baryshnikov," was performed in the original Russian, and had its premiere on October 15, 2015. Its international tour began in Tel Aviv in January 2016 and it was later staged in New York City in March 2016, still in the original Russian. (Baryshnikov met Brodsky in 1974, soon after the poet had been forced by the Soviet authorities to leave his home country and had moved to the United States. They remained friends until Brodsky's death in 1996.)[31]

Baryshnikov has had a long-term relationship with former ballerina Lisa Rinehart. They had three children together: Peter (born July 7, 1989), Anna (born May 22, 1992), and Sofia (born May 24, 1994). Though he told Larry King in 2002 that he did not "believe in marriage in the conventional way",[32] he and Rinehart married in 2006.[33]

Honoree, The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts, CBS, 2000

Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance (documentary), PBS, 2001

(In archive footage) Bourne to Dance (documentary), Channel 4, 2001

Also appeared in "Prodigal Son," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux," and "Other Dances," all Dance in America, PBS; Baryshnikov: The Dancer and the Dance, PBS; and Carmen, on French television.